Justin FentonTerrell Allen, the other half of the Blackwell-Allen feud that police say sparked wave of retaliatory shootings, is in court for VOR today

The family of Pikesville murder victim Ernest Bo Gales, 21, who was killed a yr ago today, is offering $10k for tips in the case

From yesterday: Officers charged with assaulting drug suspect who ran into home of off-duty officer's girlfriend http://bsun.md/UedTtm*

Got an email frm victim of armed robbery near O'Donnell Square. She's pretty shaken but wants it to be a lesson for others to be alert

Second-degree assault charges come nearly a full year after incident occurred in East Baltimore. Announced just before courts closed. ... According to records, the incident started with a drug arrest initiated in the same block that Anthony Anderson died during a drug arrest

Thursday, October 18, 2012

Dropped by the Batts confirmation at City Hall last night.* Came in late because every fckn parking machine around the city hall square was broken. Ended up arriving at the ochre-n-buttercream sanctum of room 4 w/parking unpaid and a 1/2 hour late, just missing Robert Cherry's testimony- - Cherry's a (former? current?) homicide detective and head of the police union, with a curiously strong Boston accent. Asked, "so how'd it go, are you for him or against him?"
"Eh, for him, we're going to give him a chance."
"And then what?" I asked, which got an ambiguous chortle.
Then from behind the dias asked, "so here's the question on everyone's minds..." ooh, I thought, they're going to ask him if he ever hit his wife in the face with a mug, or about that veteran who got nailed with a canister at Occupy Oakland, or about the OPD receivership! Here we go!
"... where are you going to live?"

Batts declines to say where he is living; "Im a resident of the city of Baltimore." "What district?" "One of the districts"

Took a seat inside downstairs and rest of the hour I could stand continued in the mein of a hot buttered lovefest, with an endorsement from some slender white man from some neighborhood association giving an endorsement, then copious praise from councilpeople for respective officers and district commanders. Some male councilmember wryly noted that though Batts could now cash a paycheck he still has to make it through the hearing to assume the title, and one of our fine feisty sexagenarian black ladies from behind me was like, "oh, he gone cash that check all right, pffsshht!" (Muttery older black ladies are always the highlight of any civic event, IMO, and if you go to one you should sit near as many as possible.)
I couldn't place his voice at first but when I closed my eyes he sounded just like Rod Rosenstein-- must be the Harvard in em.
Young endorsed plainclothes officers reporting to districts (they don't now, I guess?) and Batts was all like, "people tell me I look like you, Jack!" and gave some kind of general noncommittal answer.
Anyway after about an hour I was worried about a $32 ticket (didn't get one, even a block from the BPD HQ and with three cop cars parked by city hall) and had domestic duties, but Fenton reports that heat was taken:

"But there were tense moments as well: Four residents asked about or referred to reports from a publication in Long Beach alleging that Batts had been involved in domestic-violence incidents there years earlier. He has not been charged with a crime. Among those who raised the issue was Jean Allen, the president of the Edgewood Community Association, who said she had seen the accusations online. "Whether it's true or not, it's there," she said of the allegations being in the public realm. "We all want to know more about him."

Batts took questions only from council members, who did not raise the issue.
The Baltimore Sun has attempted to verify the report, reaching several people named in the article or by its author. Nonesaid they had direct knowledge or evidence. Though Batts declined to discuss the article in detail, he has called it 'humiliating' and said he had been cleared through multiple background checks."

So there you have it-- dissent quashed-- and darn me for not signing up to testify and asking him about Occupy, receivership, lobstergate and domestic-violence accusations my danged self. Sure he would have been confirmed anyway but if I had spoken up maybe he would have felt like he had to at least answer Jean Allen. I'm so over police/officials here feeling like they are answerable to no one, and they are, all because wusses like me don't seize the opportunity to demand answers, dammit. I have let you all down. But hey, Batts says he might make Comsat meetings public. Good idea-- more transparency and they could meld that with community meetings:

Left on cutting room floor: Batts said he's flirted with idea of making Comstat meetings public, taking it on the road ... Comstat meetings are the weekly stat-sharing among commanders; reputation as a beat-down session. It'd go 180 degrees if taken public. ...community meetings are commanders talking to residents. Comstat is commanders talking to commanders abt intel, strategy.

This just in (again): the U.S. has the highest incarceration rate in the world, with 2.2 million people currently @the belly of the beast. Prof. to Bloomberg: "The model is, if you built it, they will come."

Fenton profiles The Rev. CD Witherspoon,* local community activist/onetime city council candidate. Good for him, speaking up for change. But please, Rev, do not sully your rep by hanging out with J. Wyndal Gordon, the "Warrior Lawyer." You may recall Gordon was Frank Conaway's attorney who had some choice Jew-hating sentiments during the Adam Meister assalt/unlicensed concealed weapon kerfuffle*: "'When you have a situation where you have a Jewish victim and an African-American male, you have things happen differently than if it happened to be a regular case,' [Gordon] said. He suggested that 'perhaps because of their commonality in their religion ... ' " Cortly should find himself some nice liberal social-activist Jews to hang out with next, dontchathink?

Also Fenton revisits Oliver a decade after the Dawson family * was burned up in their home for "snitching" on neighborhood drug dealers. .. speaking of Moltov cocktails, I wonder what became of Edna McAbier, who went into witness protection after thugs threw some down her chimney in Harwood?